The Sultan of Swank

Sidney Crosby blows the game for Pittsburgh, he tries to hold onto the puck for far too long, Plekanec easily strips him of the puck, flys down the ice on a 2 on 1 with Souray and Pleks passes to Souray who unloaded on the shot putting it just over the head of a sprawling Fleury for the Overtime win. That game, while great that we won, the officiating was boners for Crosby and his brigade for 2 full periods. Montreal got 2 powerplay opportunities in the whole game, both in the third period. There were so many blatant missed calls that when Montreal finally got a powerplay the crowd gave the refs a standing ovation. I counted 5 calls a 3 year old could have made, and another 3 that I would say would have been tough calls but penalites nonetheless. The only one Montreal got away with was Bouillon turned away from Crosby and high sticked him as he skated away. Crosby, again, did his fish out of water on the play. But honestly, the League should focus on officiating for the next season. According to tonight's game, tripping or pushing over a goalie is fair game, especially when he's in his crease. 3 times that happened to Abby, no call. It was just so blatant some of the plays Pittsburgh was getting away with. But I'm happy Montreal got the win, even without their best defenceman in Andre Markov. Plecks had 2 goals on the night. But on the winning goal, Fleury didn't even need to worry about Plekanec shooting, Souray was with him, you just knew that they were going to try to unload his shot. Regardless, Montreal pulls ahead of Ottawa(until Ottawa plays again, and then only until Montreal plays again, repeat until seasons end) but the East is becomming real tight right now. 5 points seperate 4th from 8th. I like the teams who are in the playoff picture right now, would make for an exciting Eastern Conference playoff battle, plus an 8th place Carolina wouldn't give up half the free pass that Toronto would to Buffalo if they manage their way back into things. The big problems for Montreal are getting the top lines scoring. There were some assists from Kovalev and Ryder today, but right now our biggest star is Tomas Plekanec who's got 15 points in his last 15 games including 3 today. From NHL.com

I had sent Francis Bouillon away to Anaheim for picks to make cap room in my Habs game. He ended up on their second defensive pairing, in the two seasons he's been there he's been a +15 and +23 and had seasons of 59 and 67 points. I lose

I didn't say your entire team needs to be redone, I just said that I'm a fan of fast players, and if your defence is slow, you're going to get run over throughout the season.

It's not a grey area, it comes with two order ID's so you can use it on two computers. If you gave it to your brother is he stealing? I gave my second Order ID for EHM07 to SeanDMan, is he stealing?

No no, I don't want to steal it, I was just assuming that FM07 worked in the same way as EHM07 in that the order ID you get with it is good for 2 computers.

Oh man, the kids over at Canadiens.com nearly creamed themselves this morning. Ohmygodzords Forsberg is in Montreal. Yeah, he's in town to get a skate custom made at the Bauer Headquarters.

Sean, it's not often I comment about your quick thinking, or clear and concise destruction of other people and what they say. But, there was a reason I gave you EHM for a reason, and that is, I love you!

I think the most terrifying thing of all is Sundin actually being tossed around in trade talks. Is he retiring soon and wants to pull a Bourque?(that is ditch a weak team for a contending team). Also, has anyone else heard Huet saying that he's playing to the end of his contract(2 years) and then retiring? If that were the case, I'd ditch him in a trade. Abby's been the better of the two lately, he's younger than Huet and is cheaper. And if you thought that I was just moaning about how shitty the reffing was in Pittsburgh. I got this of Ryan Henderson over at the Hockey Buzz.

Well the Italian league has what? 4 teams who've lost points for match fixing. I think the whole league needs a bit of a fixing.

I'm hoping Montreal's about to win a bunch of games in the next little while. With that monster effort last night without their star player it was huge. If we play with that sort of effort and grit for the remainder of the season I wouldn't be suprised if Montreal went 20-10. The only problem is putting in that sort of effort every night. I hope it'll carry over into Long Island tomorrow and then on Sunday in Montreal, against Pittsburgh again, it's gonna be huge! Also, I read on hockeybuzz.com that the NHL set a record attendance for January. NEW YORK (February 1, 2007) -- With dramatic playoff races continuing to build, National Hockey League clubs set an all-time record for January attendance -- attracting 3,193,093 fans to 187 total games and posting a per-game average of 17,075, the highest in the League’s 89-year history. The per-game figure, which represented 92.3% of capacity, was nearly two percent higher than the previous January high of 16,795, set during last season’s record-setting campaign. League-wide average attendance has increased month by month: 16,537 in October, 16,538 in November, 16,850 in December and 17,075 in January.

We had a thread a long while ago. ApSham and I are about to have a game. Anyone still play, or suddenly feel like playing? We're looking for some other guys to play aswell, feel free to add me on MSN at bashaass@gmail.com If you've never played before, it's quite the hard game to explain, a 2d sidescrolling game. You run around with guns shooting at each other with a limited ability to fly. Tres Fun

Yeah, to expand on what Luke here was getting at, we're trying to run a network game with each other and no matter who starts the game the person joining is never able to join.

I'm actually wondering if I could just use someone's order ID as I'm assuming it works on 2 computers like with EHM07

I have a question, I was wondering if FM07 is anything like EHM07 in the way that your e-license code is good to work on two computers. I was just wondering if the people here like to share like I did with SDM with my 'extra' e-license code. I really like the FM07 game, but I'm not entirely able to puchase right now or in the forseeable future. So if this is a possibility, and somebody wants to love me like I did SDM, I would greatly appreciate it.

Montreal and Pittsburgh played a superbly entertaining game last night. Right from the opening draw we learned that Crosby is a bitch. Montreal went down 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2. But scored 2 shorthanded goals in the game as everyone put in a complete effort for the whole game. The only reason we lost that one was Carbo's shootout choices, Kovalev, Higgins and Pleckanec. Kovalev I would take, I would have chosen Ryder or Samsonov over Higgins as both have a great shot and some skill with the stick, and Pleck, while on a good streak as of late, isn't really a natural scorer, I'd have chosen our best shootout player in Koivu instead. Regardless we still stole a point and 4th place in the process. What's scary is that there's 4 points seperating Ottawa and Montreal(62 points each) from Tampa, Carolina and Pittsburgh(6,7,8 all with 58 points) I really think Montreal would have won the game if it wasn't for that ridiculous match penalty to Souray. I can understand the 2, 5 and 10. Fine, Souray instigated it, and fought, but Armstrong had his gloves off first, and I do believe that seeing and he got his gloves off first, that's an intention to fight, even if you got pounded so bad you could barely get up on your own. He should have gotten 2 minutes at the very least, and the Match penalty was just excessive. After that Pittsburgh had a 7 minute powerplay, and then Ryder strips Stall of the puck by lifting his stick then taking the puck and it was another ridiculous penalty for hooking. Pittsburgh had a conescutive powerplay of half of a period, 2 minutes of it as a 5-3. They scored twice and gave up a crazy short handed goal to Bonk. Still, losing a key motivator, and a key player was tough for Montreal to deal with. After we lost Souray it was a herculean effort to climb back into the game. It was 4-2 with less than 10 minutes to play and Montreal showed no quit and tons of heart in closing the deficit. Then in OT we had a beautiful chance to win it but Fleury was on his game tonight. Fleury and Abby made some huge saves tonight, most notably a post to post pad save by Abby on Malkin. So Montreal steals 1 point, we get another try on Sunday, but losing Souray was tits, with him, I think the game was ours.

Well we all know Jersey < * that's right <, sure they've got a great team, but when you have poor attendance but star players, you know it's because you play some really boring hockey. Also, for some reason, I find myself in love with Hajj.

Pittsburgh>Toronto

I still say that Raycroft's Calder was a sham, Ryder deserved it over him. Anyways, Pittsburgh tonight, maybe we can knock down another high flying team. Keep jostling with Ottawa for 4th. It's probably going to be an Ottawa - Montreal quarter finals. Would be a good match up, the games between the two teams are usually pretty good. Montreal has 2 games at hand on Ottawa and are a point back, they also have a game at hand on Toronto and are 5 points ahead of those losers. Toronto is still out of the Playoff picture, so if I were to make picks now based on the current situation in the east, it'd be; Buffalo - Tampa New Jersey - Pittsburgh Atlanta - Carolina Ottawa - Montreal I'd pick, Buffalo in 5, Jersey in 6, Atlanta in 5 and a toss up between Ottawa and Montreal, it depends who's streakier at the moment, in this case, Ottawa in 6.

Hockey on the radio is the best. For me it's CJAD 800 with Rick Moffat and Murray Wilson. I sometimes turn on the record player/radio in my basement and mute RDS to catch an english commentary to a french video feed.

Montreal beats Ottawa 3-1 in a convincing fashion. Abby played 59:08 of shutout hockey, the goal by the Sens was so flukey. A shot from the point, a floater, hits some bodies along the way and Abeschier never even realizes it went in. Streit and Pleckanec both get partial breaks for their goals, one of them a shorthanded goal and after Spezza goes end to end and through Souray, much in the same way as last season Abby absolutely robs him. Another nice save was on Heatley on the one timer he had early in the game. Montreal looks like they're trying to put things back together now having won 3 of 4.

They've seemingly lost their razzle dazzle from the beginning of the season, all of them have. There needs to be a shake-up I reckon. And Koivu also needs to put the fear of god in the hearts of his teammates.

I heard any combination of Kostistyn, Grabovski or Chipchura. In any case, it'd be a terrible deal for Montreal.

yeah, but I've heard rumors of Forsberg comming to Montreal for Sammy, and 2 prospects. I'd personally hate the deal, but the point is that he adds in a multi-player deal. And Gainey, shit he could work miracles with deals.